Overview

Agriculture accounted for 9.5 percent of Angola’s US$ 74 billion GDP in 2021, and it provides employment, both formal and informal, for more than 46 percent of the Angolan population.  Prior to the 1975-2002 civil war, Angola was a major exporter of coffee, sisal, sugarcane, banana, and cotton, and it was self-sufficient in all basic food crops except wheat.  The civil war disrupted agricultural production and displaced millions of people.  Angola currently imports more than half of its food.

Angola has the natural resources to become one of the leading agricultural producers in Africa, as its diverse and fertile ecology is suited for a variety of crops and livestock.  However, the country currently only cultivates approximately 10 percent of its 35 million hectares of arable land.  An estimated 88 percent of farms in Angola are small to medium in size and are used mainly for communal and subsistence farming.  The agricultural commodities produced include cassava, bananas, potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, citrus, and pineapples.  

Chicken remains the major U.S. agriculture export to Angola, and the sale of these products increased in 2021 due to the Angolan economy’s slight recovery. On January 14, 2019 Angola enacted Presidential Decree 23/19, which protects 54 products that are produced domestically, in an attempt to reduce competition from imports.

Leading Sub-Sectors

• Retail Sector (consumer-oriented food products)
• Poultry
• Wheat Grain

Opportunities

In Angola, food is sold both through modern retail and informal channels.  Local industry sources estimate that approximately 70 percent of agricultural produce is channeled through retail sales.  Informal retail includes both small grocers as well as open air markets (locally called “Cantinas”).  Since the civil war ended in 2002, the importance of the informal market has declined, especially in urban centers such as Luanda, where formal retail is developing rapidly.  The government is trying to formalize retail by establishing specific areas for open markets.  In Luanda, municipal authorities are forcibly shutting down street vendors with laws that impose fines for both vendors and buyers.  Public health concerns are the main reason cited for the closures of informal open markets, as goods are often sold in poor condition, food is kept on the ground without refrigeration and exposed to the sun, and expired goods are sometimes offered for sale. 

As with many other things in the country, shopping itself is not without challenges.  Only a small percentage of Angola’s population owns a car, thus most people are dependent on overcrowded public mini-buses to reach big-box superstores and supermarkets.  Consequently, the majority of the population prefers to shop close to home in open-air markets or small grocers, which are perceived as offering fresher, less expensive food than formal supermarkets.  Even with more convenient supermarket locations opening in the past few years in the outer areas of Luanda, many Angolans feel more comfortable in informal markets.  For this reason, local formal retailers have come up with various strategies to attract the informal market customer.  Hypermarket Kero, tries to create a comfortable environment for lower and middle-income customers by playing loud Angolan music, and the main cash and carry supermarkets have created a benefits card to reward client purchases. 

Changes in consumer profile and demographics, increasing urbanization, improvements in infrastructure, and an increase in the number of international brands available in the Angolan market are driving rapid developments in the retail landscape.  Consumers across income levels are becoming more sophisticated and demanding in terms of variety and quality.  In the past, Angolans were satisfied with small grocers selling dry goods, but now retailers are expected to offer frozen goods as well.  Historically, Portuguese, Lebanese, and Indians have been the dominant players in the Angolan grocery retail market. The South African supermarket chain Shoprite expanded into Angola and new players have entered the formal retail space, including the hypermarket Candando.  Some supermarkets target wealthier Angolans and expatriates, such as Casa dos Frescos and Intermarket, which offer the greatest choice of fresh produce and higher quality standards.

 

(total market size = (total local production + imports) - exports) 
Units: thousand metric tons
Source: TDM LLC; Angola Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and National Bank of Angola 

Poultry

Chicken meat is the most widely consumed and most affordable protein in Angola.  Some estimates said that Angola produces 25,000 tons of chicken meat per year, only 20 percent of total market demand of approximately 125,000 tons per year in 2021.  Producers include subsistence farmers, smallholder producers supported by government and non-governmental projects, and commercial operations.

From 2020 to 2021, Angola’s poultry imports in terms of volume increased by 18 percent.  In 2021, Angola was the sixth largest market for U.S. poultry and poultry product shipments by volume and was the eighth by value. Angola remains a strong market opportunity for U.S. frozen chicken leg quarters.  

Wheat Grain 

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Angola produced about 25,000 tons of wheat grain per year, mainly in the southern Huambo province.  The civil war halted wheat production and destroyed flour milling capacity.

Faced with lost oil revenues since the end of 2014, the Angola government encouraged the development of wheat milling to replace relatively costly flour imports as part of its overall economic diversification plan.

The country’s wheat milling capacity has been expanding since 2017, with the opening of the first wheat mill by Grandes Moagens de Angola (GMA). The facility has a processing capacity of approximately 280,000 metric tons (MT) annually. The Carrinho Group, based in Benguela province, also opened a mill with a similar capacity. Kikolo wheat mill, on the outskirts of Luanda, has the capacity to process 140,000 MT per year. AP Foods is a pasta factory, but in 2019 the company built a wheat mill with a capacity of approximately 100,000 MT per year. These wheat mills collectively offer about 800,000 MT of milling capacity in Angola annually. They are also all associated with the Association of Wheat Flour Producers of Angola.

In 2020, PAC provided financing worth US$ 20 million to Induve, an Angolan processing company, to build a new wheat mill with the capacity to process 700 MT per day and an annual average of 255,000 MT of wheat. Angola has very limited wheat production, so the new mill is expected to drive demand for increased wheat imports, supported by the GRA’s increase of tariffs on wheat flour imports from 0 to 20 percent, thus encouraging more imports of wheat grain to be milled domestically. Induve mill is not a member of the Association of Wheat Flour Producers, but including the capacity of the new mill, Angola can now mill over 1 million MT of wheat each year.

Angola currently imports about 150,000 tons of wheat flour per year mainly from Turkey, at a value of US$ 63 million in 2021.  The increased capacity in wheat milling is increasing demand for wheat, thus creating opportunities for U.S. wheat exporters.

Resources 

Ministry of Agriculture (http://www.minagrif.gov.ao/) 

Ministry of Commerce   

Ministry of Health 

 

For more details from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, contact: 

Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS Luanda) 

U.S. Embassy Luanda 

Rua Huari Boumedienne, #32 

Miramar, Luanda, Angola 

Tel: (+244) 222-641-058 

E-mail: Ricardo.Dias@US$a.gov  

 

Office of Agricultural Affairs (FAS/US$A)  

U.S. Embassy Pretoria 

877 Pretorius Street 

Pretoria, South Africa 0001 

Tel: (+27) 12-431-4057 

Fax: (+27) 12-342-2264 

E-mail: agPretoria@US$a.gov 

 

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) 

U.S. Embassy Pretoria 

877 Pretorius Street 

Pretoria, South Africa 0001 

Tel: (+27) 12-431-4711